FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Hospital, Physician Held Liable in Death

A Superior Court jury has awarded $1.5 million in damages to the father of a 6-year-old girl who was given the wrong dose of a medication by a physician at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital and Medical Center more than five years ago.

Jurors deliberated for nearly two days in the branch court in Newport Beach before concluding Tuesday that the hospital and Dr. Stephen Johnson were negligent in the February, 1988, death of Mary Tran of Santa Ana.

Hospital officials said they will appeal the verdict. Johnson is undecided about an appeal.

Mary’s father, Dinh Tran, rushed her to the hospital on Feb. 11, 1988, when she developed a rare syndrome--including a severe skin rash--that stemmed from an allergic reaction to antibiotics she was taking for an ear infection, Tran’s attorney, Philip S. Cifarelli, said.

Jurors concluded that hospital staff erred in not weighing the 46-pound child when she was admitted, choosing instead to estimate her weight as 65 pounds on a medical chart.

Cifarelli alleged that Johnson over-prescribed drugs for Mary based on the incorrect weight. The child’s respiratory system failed, and she died 32 hours after admission to the hospital.

“No one asked her parents what she weighed,” Cifarelli said. “She died because she was overdosed while she was at the hospital.”

Johnson’s attorney, Benjamin Casillas, said Mary’s condition was so critical when she was admitted that the doctor and staff did not have time to weigh her. The child would have died of the illness at the time, Casillas contended, and all that Johnson could have done was prescribe drugs to lessen her pain.

“Even assuming that the dosage was based upon an incorrect weight, she would have died anyway because of the severity of the . . . syndrome,” Casillas said. “That’s an important factor that the jury did not consider.”

Rick Hicks, the hospital’s assistant administrator, added that estimating the weight of a critically ill patient at the time of admission is a standard procedure at the facility.

“It’s such a tragedy, and the hospital feels tremendously sad,” Hicks said. “But the fact is (we) did everything appropriate.”